UK Space Agency to Build a Spaceport

Build it and they will come. That was the message from the UK Space Agency today as it revealed ambitious plans to build a spaceport somewhere in the UK before 2018. However, no commercial space company has yet demonstrated a spaceplane that is capable of carrying paying passengers.

The plan is to build a spaceport at a remote site where regular airline traffic is low. The location also has to have a longer-than usual runway or room to build one. This is because after a hypersonic re-entry, spaceplanes will still be travelling at far greater speeds than standard planes and will need more room to land.

Build it and they will come. That was the message from the UK Space Agency today as it revealed ambitious plans to build a spaceport somewhere in the UK before 2018. However, no commercial space company has yet demonstrated a spaceplane that is capable of carrying paying passengers.